Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ted Rosenthal Trio: My Funny Valentine

137

Ted Rosenthal Trio: My Funny Valentine

Ted Rosenthal Trio: My Funny Valentine
In a skittish music industry where labels increasingly blur their identities and grab at gimmicks just to stay alive, it's reassuring to know that Venus Records continues to produce high-quality, straight-ahead jazz. Based in Japan but recording mostly in New York, Venus has a longstanding, signature focus on documenting the world's best piano trios, and My Funny Valentine is no exception.



This project was conceived by leader Ted Rosenthal as an instrumental tribute to singer Helen Merrill, who has long been a huge star in Japan; together they have performed many of the tunes on this CD, including "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," which was Merrill's first and most beloved hit (her 1954 Emarcy eponymous album on which it arrived was voted "best album of the past 50 years" in a Japanese magazine readers' poll).



Like virtually every Venus artist, Rosenthal and his colleagues—bassist George Mraz and drummer Al Foster—are world-renowned players with impressive pedigrees who are at the absolute top of their game. Given the label's famous preference for familiar standards in traditional arrangements, the challenge is to play them with both respect and creativity.



This trio rises tunefully to that challenge with soulful romanticism, a dash of mischief, and the highest level of seamless interplay. Between Rosenthal's fluid eloquence, Mraz's deep lyricism, and Foster's subtly propulsive accents, they give new life to classics like "Alone Together" and "Softly As in a Morning Sunrise." My Funny Valentine offers seventy minutes of pure mainstream jazz, with an emphasis on luxurious ballads. This CD is so melodic that you can even play it for people who claim to dislike this music. It may even convert a few.

Track Listing

You

Personnel

Ted Rosenthal: piano; George Mraz: bass; Al Foster: drums.

Album information

Title: My Funny Valentine | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: Venus Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Ted Rosenthal Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.